Dominion Expects To Restore Electric Service By Friday Night To More Than 95 Percent Of Customers Affected By Winter Storm

RICHMOND, Va., March 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion Virginia Power expects to restore service by Friday night for more than 95 percent of customers whose power was disrupted by a severe winter storm this week. The storm brought up to 18 inches of heavy, wet snow as well as high winds and rain to much of Dominion's service area from Tuesday evening until early Thursday morning.

More than 4,700 Dominion employees and contractors, including 500 from out-of-state, are working around the clock and will continue to do so until all service is restored.

The company said the pace of storm restoration will vary by area based on the extent of damage and accessibility.

As of 11a.m. today, service had been restored to about 180,000 – or 78 percent – of the 230,000 customers affected by the storm. Outage restoration essentially has been completed in the Virginia suburbs nearest to Washington, and most other areas will have power restored by Friday night. Restoration will continue into Saturday in the hardest-hit areas surrounding Charlottesville and the Shenandoah Valley.

"We recognize that any service interruption can be disruptive for customers, and it is especially difficult when conditions are challenging," said Rodney Blevins, vice president-Distribution Operations. "We've completed enough of our damage assessment to be able to provide overall restoration times by geographic areas. As crews arrive on site and complete a more detailed damage assessment, individual customer restoration times will be available."

Dominion encourages customers to use Dominion's website – dom.com – to report or check the status of their outage via a mobile device or computer. Customers also can get outage status and report an outage by calling toll free 1-866-DOM-HELP (1-866-366-4357).

Blevins said that while Dominion works quickly to address safety issues, customers should always assume downed wires are energized and stay away from them. That includes not touching trees or anything else a downed wire is touching.